AN AINTREE woman says she is trapped in a house condemned as unfit to live in.

Sharon Mulcahy has been without hot water for more than two years and relies on just one electric fire for heating after the other gas fires were sealed off for fear of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The 32-year-old suffers from agrophobia and has not been able to enter any public place for the past 10 years.

Until drastic repairs are made to her rented home on Sandy Lane she is being forced to live in the decaying building.

Miss Mulcahy, who has lived in the terraced property for nine years, told the Star: “I have to boil kettles and pans and stand in the bath and throw it over me to wash.

“The firemen came out in February to tape up a broken window and found carbon-monoxide coming from the gas fires so they condemned them. That was why I was always ill.

“I only have one electric heater to warm the house up. The kitchen ceiling has fell through five times because a pipe leaks behind the toilet upstairs. They just patch it up. They have put a new toilet in but didn’t mend the leak. It is so unsafe the ceiling could collapse at anytime.

“An environmental health officer has been and said it is the worst property he has ever seen. My nurse said anyone who hasn’t got depression would have, living in a house like this. It has never been a homely home since I moved in, always something wrong with it but the last two years it has deteriorated.

“It has gone from bad to worse, especially since it I’ve had no hot water.”

Miss Mulcahy, who has chronic asthma, says the house is so damp the door frames are rotten and will not hold the screws in.

The two-bedroomed house is owned by a private landlord and managed by Roach Estates, on County Road.

Despite Sharon’s requests to rectify the problems, she says her cries for help have gone ignored.

But the agency said they only took over the property a year ago and have carried out hundreds of pounds worth of work in that time.

But Miss Mulcahy said: “I ring up everyday, but still nobody has been out.

“One of the directors from the agency visited in December and said the landlord might do the repairs.

“I have a 10-inch hole in the kitchen wall right through to the outside where workmen ripped out the air vent, but never finished off the job.

“The agency have offered to move me to one of the ‘Flower streets’ (in Kirkdale), but living there would isolate me even more.”

An environmental health officer visited the property under the Healthy Homes programme.

A Liverpool council spokesman said: “Due to the number of severe hazards in the property we consider it unsuitable for the tenant to continue to live there. We are arranging for a case support officer to work closely with the tenant and make the transfer to another property as easy and straightforward as possible.

“In the meantime we are working with the landlords to ensure that emergency repairs are carried out as soon as possible.”

Agents: we need to move occupier out

ROACH Estates were keen to stress to the Star they only took over the property a year ago, and since then hundreds of pounds worth of work has been undertaken. The agency also said they have done their best to offer Miss Mulcahy alternative accommodation to allow them to carry out extensive repairs.

A manager from Roach Estates said: “We took up the house a year ago from another agent and it was only afterwards we realised the house wasn’t up to scratch. During that time £700 worth of jobs have been carried out.

“We need to move Miss Mulcahy out of the house into another property in order to repair it, but she refuses to leave. It is impossible to rip up floorboards and ceilings to carry out work while she is still living there.

“We have offered other properties to her but she doesn’t want to go. We cannot force her to leave or evict her.

“There are alternative properties that she can go to – we have offered to pick her up and take her round to see which one she likes.